Bermuda Schwartz (7 page)

The tall guy releases his grip and Trimmingham folds onto the ground. The short guys rears back with the bat.

“Stop!” I yell, closing in.

The short guy delivers another whack, this one to Trimmingham's head. Then another. And another. Then the two of them hop in the car and it squeals away.

By the time I reach Trimmingham, he is trying to prop himself up on an elbow. But he doesn't have it in him. He collapses on the pavement, head lolling to one side.

He doesn't look like the same guy I was just sitting across from in the bar. His eyes are battered shut, and blood oozes from wicked gashes along both cheekbones. His nose is split down the middle and flattened against the pulverized mess that is his face.

Trimmingham tries again to sit up, but falls back, cradling an arm against his chest, moaning in agony.

“Just lie still,” I tell him.

Trimmingham sucks in air, gets a mouthful of blood. He coughs and blood splatters my face and shirt.

I try to apply pressure to the gashes on his cheekbones, but he jerks away.

“Try not to move,” I tell him. “Deep breaths.”

He breathes, coughs, splatters me with blood again.

The bartender from Benny's steps out the back door, spotting us as he lights a cigarette.

“Call an ambulance,” I tell him.

He doesn't move.

“Do it!” I yell. “Now!”

The bartender hurries back inside.

People gather at the mouth of the alley. A woman kneels beside me. She pulls a handkerchief from a purse and I try to keep Trimmingham still while she dabs at the wounds on his face, trying to stop the bleeding.

There's shouting from the street, then a siren.

Trimmingham's breaths turn fast and shallow. He's slipping into shock.

As the ambulance arrives he tries again to sit up.

“Help me,” he says.

“It's going to be fine. They're taking you to the hospital.”

He reaches out, finds my arm, seizes it.

“No, you have to help me. With them,” he says. “Please …”

He collapses on the pavement as the ambulance crew swarms in.

 

I‘m way late returning to the spot where J.J. is supposed to pick me up outside Richfield Bank, but he is parked and waiting for me. I slide into the front seat of his van.

“Sorry I took so long. Ran into a few problems.”

“More than just a few, by the looks of it.” J.J. eyes my blood-spattered shirt. “You going to the Mid Ocean Club like that?”

“I was hoping to buy something, but all the stores are closed.”

“What size jacket you wear?”

“A forty-eight long.”

“I probably got something that'll fit. My house is on the way. Might rustle up a shirt, too.”

“Well, thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Oh, don't be thanking me for anything yet.”

He raises an eyebrow, shoots a look at a rear seat. Only then do I notice the other passenger in the van—a woman, thirtyish, her long black hair pulled back tightly against her head then tied in a ponytail that just barely manages to control it. She wears a tight black T-shirt and jeans, a pair of funky red glasses.

“My niece,” J.J. says.

“Janeen Hill,” the woman says. “From the
Royal Gazette”

“You were there yesterday when we found the body.”

“Yes,” she says. “That's what I was hoping to talk to you about.”

I look at J.J. He puts up a hand in protest.

“Wasn't my idea,” he says. “I told her she shouldn't be ambushing you like this.”

“Why, listen to you,” Janeen says. “You're the one called me and told me you'd driven Mr. Chasteen downtown this afternoon. So don't be playing Mr. High and Mighty with me.”

J.J. mutters something, pulls the van onto the street.

“How can I help you, Ms. Hill?” I say.

She scoots forward in the seat, pushes the glasses up on her nose. She is wound tight, ready to pounce.

“Need you to confirm something for me,” she says. “Tell me about the condition of the body when it was pulled from the water.”

“I'm guessing you want to know about the eyes, right?”

“Yes, that.”

“They were gone,” I say. “But isn't that common knowledge by now? Your uncle knew about it. Plenty of other people apparently did, too. Why do you need me to confirm it?”

“Because I refuse to rely on secondhand information,” Janeen says. “The rumor was floating around the newsroom last night, but there was nothing about it in the preliminary report, and the police wouldn't comment on it, on or off the record. I refuse to allow conjecture to be a part of anything I write.”

“Makes you a rare breed of journalist,” I say.

“Not really. But that's neither here nor there,” she says. “I've got a stake in this story.”

“How's that?”

She looks out the window. We're bogged down in traffic, just creeping along.

“Seven years ago, when I was just starting at the paper, I covered a story that was a lot like this one,” she says. “Two bodies were found then, both bound in similar fashion, both with their eyes missing.”

“Yeah, your uncle mentioned something about that,” I say. “He said the case was never solved.”

“Never fully pursued is more like it. At least, not by the authorities.” There's bitterness in her voice. “Everything died down and the police just sort of put it on a shelf and conveniently forgot about it.”

J.J. clears his throat. He glances at Janeen in the rearview mirror.

“Just because I'm letting you ride in my van doesn't mean I need to be
hearing your conspiracy theories,” he says. “Talk about conjecture. I've heard you conject all kinds of things about what got those two men killed, Janeen.”

“Yes, you have. But I've never written about it.”

“Good thing, too,” says J.J. “Because no one in their right mind would believe it.”

“Well, now maybe they might.”

“Believe what?” I say.

Janeen shakes her head, turns away.

“Go ahead. Tell the man,” J.J. says. “I'd like to hear what he thinks of it.”

Janeen doesn't say anything.

“What's the matter? Afraid he might not believe your nonsense either?” J.J. looks at me. “My niece, she's usually got a pretty good head about her. Except when it comes to this so-called story of hers. And then she gets crazy.”

Janeen ignores him, reaches into her purse, pulls out a pack of cigarettes, and starts to light one.

“Unh-uh,” says J.J. “Not in my van you don't.”

Janeen takes the cigarette out of her mouth. She folds her arms across her chest, looks out the window.

The traffic eases up. We whip through a roundabout and are soon riding along Point Finger Road toward the south coast.

J.J. splits off onto a narrow lane lined with eucalyptus trees. He stops the van outside a house half-hidden by jacaranda bushes.

“Might take a few minutes,” he says, getting out of the van. “I have to heat up the iron and put it to the shirt, get the wrinkles out of it.”

“You don't have to go to all that trouble,” I tell him. “I don't mind wrinkled.”

“Maybe not,” he says. “But Mrs. Ambister? She does.”

 

As soon as J.J. is gone, Janeen steps out of the van and lights her cigarette. She stands with her back to me, facing the street.

I open my door and perch on the side of the seat.

“Funny,” I say. “You don't look that crazy.”

Janeen cuts me a look over her shoulder. She blows smoke out the side of her mouth, allows herself a smile.

“Oh, believe me, I have my moments,” she says.

“We all do. Matter of fact, I'm teetering on the brink of insanity right now myself.”

She turns around, sizes me up.

“You seem to be holding it together fairly well. For a guy wearing a shirt that looks like it mopped up a butcher's shop. What's up with that?”

“Oh, let's just say I've got a couple million reasons for not getting into it. Besides, I'd rather hear about those two other murders you were talking about. Your uncle told me earlier that they were scuba divers.”

Janeen takes a drag on her cigarette, flicks the ash.

“Not just your ordinary scuba divers,” she says. “One of them, Martin Boyd, was a treasure salvor. A pretty famous one. He'd worked with that guy in Florida, Mel Something-or-Other, I forget …”

“Mel Fisher. Discovered the
Atocha
down in the Keys.”

“That's it. Anyway, Boyd had some successes of his own after that, mostly at sites in the Mediterranean. Which is where he met and eventually teamed up with Richard Peach.”

“That the other dead guy?”

She nods.

“Ever heard of him?”

“No, can't say that I have.”

“Neither had I, at least not until after I started working on the story. Since then, I've become something of an authority on Richard Peach. For all the good that's done me.”

“Was he another treasure salvor?”

“No, Peach was an academician. Had dual doctorates in archaeology and biblical studies from Oxford. Used to be a professor there. Wrote a book called
The Legend of the Lost Cross”

“The Lost Cross?”

“Yeah, also known as the True Cross. The one they used to crucify Jesus Christ.”

She takes a drag on her cigarette, gauges my response. I don't really have one, not unless puzzlement counts.

“How good is your biblical history, Mr. Chasteen?”

“Pretty spotty. I was raised Episcopalian. Not exactly bible thumpers.”

“Know anything about the True Cross?”

“Next to nothing,” I say. “Except that it's one of those holy relics that people are always trying to find, like the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant. Then again, some folks might lump it in with searching for the Lost City of Atlantis. Or signs of aliens in the pyramids.”

“You sound like a skeptic,” she says.

“About most things.”

“That include religion?”

“On most days,” I say.

Janeen smiles.

“Let's leave religion out of it then.”

“Always a good idea,” I say.

“From a purely historical perspective, the whole Son of God thing aside, would you agree that someone named Jesus Christ really did exist and that he really was crucified on a wooden cross in Jerusalem, roughly in the year
AD
33?”

“Yeah, I can go with that. I mean, it's been fairly well proven as historical fact.”

“Ever wonder what happened to that cross?”

“No, not really. I mean, that was two thousand years ago. I'd guess it had long since disintegrated, turned to dust.”

“Yeah, you'd think. Still, there are cathedrals all over Europe that claim to have pieces of the True Cross, tiny slivers of wood enshrined in jeweled cases for the faithful to worship. They had to come from somewhere, right?”

“The faithful tend to worship some pretty wild things,” I say. “The image of the Virgin Mary in the windows of a bank. The face of Jesus on a piece of burnt toast. There's lots of bogus stuff out there.”

Janeen laughs.

“No doubt about that,” she says. “And there's reason to believe that many of those so-called pieces of the True Cross are bogus, too. Back during the Crusades era, plenty of pilgrims returned from the Holy Land with bagfuls of fake relics that they sold to unsuspecting believers. Chips off the rock that sealed the tomb of Jesus. Thorns from the crown of thorns. The early Christians, especially the rich ones, used to pay big money for that sort of thing.”

“Buying their way into the kingdom of heaven, a noble tradition. Make your faith pledge now, brothers and sisters. Our operators are standing by.”

A long look from Janeen.

“I take back what I said before,” she says. “You're really more of a cynic than a skeptic, aren't you?”

“As far as I'm concerned, there's not a lot of difference between organized religion and organized crime. At least the Mafia is honest enough to admit that it's only in it for the money.”

“I'd have to agree with you,” she says. “And Richard Peach probably would have, too. He was a scholar, not a cleric. Yet, he was utterly convinced that the True Cross really did exist. And he believed that a sizable chunk of it had survived the ages.”

“Exactly how sizable a chunk are we talking about?”

“Well, according to various sources that I've read, it was ten centimeters by sixteen centimeters and five centimeters thick.”

“You mind doing that conversion for my nonmetric brain?”

Janeen smiles.

“Roughly four inches by six.” She shapes it with her hands. “About the size of a paperback book, although not at all uniform. It was just a fragment, a piece that had broken off the original cross.”

“What kind of wood?”

She shrugs.

“That's up for speculation. Some accounts say it was olive. Others cedar. And still others say it was gopherwood, probably a form of cypress, like Noah used to build the ark.”

“You mean to tell me that a piece of wood like that survived two thousand years?”

“Hey, it's a piece of the True Cross. It has supernatural powers. It can survive anything.” She smiles. “You know what a reliquary is?”

“I've heard of them. They're used to store holy relics, right? The hair of John the Baptist, the bones of St. Paul, stuff like that.”

“Uh-huh. Something very elaborate, made out of silver and gold with all kinds of jewels adorning it. I've seen drawings of what it was purported to look like—shaped like a cross and maybe twice the size of the wood that was displayed inside it. It was the reliquary of all reliquaries—the Reliquarium de Fratres Crucis. The reliquary of the Brothers of the Cross.”